Tao of Ramen
by Luchia13
Summary: [oneshot, Team 7 gen] When you get Naruto drunk, he makes everything sound really, really deep. I mean...whoa, you know? [drunk Sasuke pov...]


A/N: Another oneshot, this one thanks to me being poor and having to eat lots and lots of ramen before taking a Literature midterm, meaning I was looking for poignant symbolism in damn near everything. Enjoy!

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The Tao of Ramen

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So we were out drinking and Sakura had already gotten sick of us and gone home after barfing her lungs out and bitching at us for not holding enough of her hair back. We always _try_ to get it all when we go drinking and she starts throwing up, but she just has all these stupid strands of pink EVERYWHERE and she'd whine even more if Naruto and I just grabbed it and yanked. Plus sometimes we're not there because even though we're quite literally the most awesome ninja in Konoha, even better than all our senseis combined – as proven by me killing mine (in my brain; the physical part doesn't really count because Naruto nearly did it too and that bastard was practically on his deathbed anyway), Naruto outliving his and avenging him too, and Sakura not, you know, being addicted to gambling and losing and all that shit, not to mention her wise decision to use those creepy-ass slugs sparingly. Seriously. Those things freak me out. I mean, they're slimy and honestly if I could pour a world of salt on those summons would I ever. And they're creepily polite and smell even though it's some magical healing stench and they have eyes and little…poky…antennae things…what was I talking about?

Oh, right. So Sakura doesn't even realize it but we're at a bar and she runs into the women's restroom to vomit. We can't go in there. It's called WOMEN'S restroom for a reason. I mean we maybe could have sexy-no-jutsu'd our way in but then Naruko's pigtails would just get in the way and stuff so we'd end up having to hold back two girls' hair, so we didn't go in there. Which means Sakura gets her barf all over her hair, Ino's smart enough to go help her get cleaned up, she punches us in the face, and she goes home and Naruto and I go do…something.

This one time we went back to the academy and pushed each other on the swing, which was pretty cool until we got chased off by one of the teachers. It wasn't Iruka-sensei because he'd have been nice enough to feed us afterwards and not tell anyone the next morning that we were swinging around like idiots on a plank of wood. But what made it fun was that we were trying to swing all the way around the branch. I mean, we stuck our feet to the bottom of the swing with chakra and did our damndest to get a full 360 degree rotation but there must have been a balance problem or something. Or it was just Naruto's fault. I dunno. But it was fun and then we went swimming and the dobe nearly drowned when he tried to laugh underwater. He's an idiot, but it was funny, and he's always okay in the end, so it was fun.

But anyway, this specific night, we'd just gotten back from a mission. Well, usually when we really get drunk it's after a mission, and when we get THIS drunk it's usually been a bad one. Which makes us feel kinda guilty about being able to take more alcohol than Sakura-chan…wait, did I just say Sakura-chan? I meant SAKURA. No chan. Bad chan. God, that would be an awesome name for a little yippy dog. Good birthday idea for Sakura. Almost pithy, since she knows I'll never call her Sakura-chan and she can get me a can named Kun because she dropped that like an explosive note when I came back to Konoha.

Naruto doesn't get a pet. He'd end up eating it if he got drunk enough.

See, that's a really weird thing about when Naruto gets drunk. I've heard of people who get hungry, but sometimes he goes, well, I can only really call it HUNTING. He pounces on things. It's kinda cute but creepy because one time he nearly ate a live squirrel. He either gets pouncy or really, really profound. Like you have to stare and think really hard about it for a while and then it clicks and the dobe's a genius and you just have to go "whoa, Naruto", and he just does this nod of sagely knowledge.

I usually don't remember a damn bit of that smart Naruto stuff in the morning – or how or why I got wherever the hell I wake up, come to think of it – but I do remember this one time when we went to Ichiraku's because he said we should and I felt like it was a good idea.

He ordered miso ramen. He always orders miso ramen. Well, okay, sometimes he'll change it up, but nine to one odds are that he'll get miso. If he's really depressed though he might go for something else just so one of us notices, one of those silent pleas for help things that Kakashi talks about with my clothes and nail polish and things. I swear I'm going to see what's under that mask, and then I am going to punch it. Hard. Possibly get Sakura to do it so it hurts more.

But he gets his ramen and he turns to me and my sake (when we go drinking, I don't stop) and says, in that sagely knowledgeable voice he gets, "we are like ramen, Sasuke."

I thought about that statement. And then I thought some more. It still didn't make sense, so I called him an idiot.

"Okay, so maybe not ramen, but…our lives are like the creation of ramen," he starts out. By now I know to set the sake down because I'm about to have my worldview shaken until I forget it in the morning. "See, first you get the water and put it in the pot and stuff. Metal doesn't like the water, the water's stuck with the metal. Kinda like childhood and that whole 'I didn't pick the brother who murdered my clan' or the 'I didn't pick to be a neglected orphan outcast' thing."

I nod. Pot and water. We're the water and the village is the pot…I think. So far I'm following, so I nod. Doubly.

"Right, so the water's stuck there, nothing's happening. Then you get the heat and the water starts to boil, so the water gets to fight against the pot just holding it in and shit, you know?"

Not really, but I nod. We're fighting the village I guess. Or childhood. Or…something. It'll probably make sense later. Another nod, and he's off.

"So the water's independent and rebellious but then BAM, all of a sudden someone adds this hard square of noodles! You're thinking what the fuck is this shit I have to deal with now, I just got to be myself and now they're sticking me with some fucking noodles!"

I'm actually starting to get it, so I nod. A lot. It kind of hurts, and Naruto's making sure I stay on my stool. I fall off sometimes when we come drinking here. It hurts a lot.

"I know how the water feels," I say, stunned, eyes wide, and there it is, that sagely nod. Where the hell he learned that I will never know, because Naruto is a dumb moron-idiot-dobe.

"But then the noodles loosen up and the water gets less hissy and stops spitting and the noodles and the water are suddenly, you know, _together_."

My jaw drops. Naruto does that sage-nod-of-knowledge thing again. "Whoa."

"See? We're totally ramen." He grins, slightly watery as he grips me by the shoulders. "You're my noodles."

"You're MY noodles!" I say, touched by his world-shattering observation, and grip him by the shoulder. We make some sort of weird ying-yang thing. "And Sakura's our…meat or something."

"To Sakura- the meat of our ramen!" Naruto toasts, and I'm more than happy to oblige, downing sake at a rate that probably makes me better than Tsunade too.

But I'm already frowning as the liquid goes down. "But Naruto, the pot sucks."

"Ahh, see? That's why ramen is always served in a bowl."

I quirk an eyebrow up. "The world is our ramen bowl?"

"Nooo, Sasuke, FREEDOM is our ramen bowl!" Naruto crows, holding his half-eaten ramen aloft like a torch of victory. I always start to wax poetic when he gets like this. He gets a brain and I get an overactive imagination. "Away from the pot of childhood, we're poured into the freedom of an unknown future that you only know ends with getting eaten!"

I grimace. "Rather die in battle than be eaten."

"No SHIT Sasuke, I'm just trying to make you understand our lives as ramen! You think we were boiled into existence?!"

"I don't give a fuck, Naruto, just eat us up and let's go do something." His good idea seems less of a good idea now that my sake bottle is empty.

"Only if you promise to remember we're ramen, and that we're each other's noodles," Naruto growls, snapping his chopsticks at me. Pretty damn rude, but hey. The idiot's got a point, so I nod.

"Promise I'll remember." If I remember anything, I'll remember he's my noodles and I'm his. It never stops sounding deep and poignant in my big, big brain.

Naruto eats ramen ridiculously fast. He's a giant ramen vacuum. I don't know how long he takes to eat it, but it's not very long until we're helping each other out of Ichiraku's.

"Heeey, Sasuke, didja ever know Sandaime could summon talkin' monkeys?" Naruto slurs against my ear.

I snicker. "We're so drunk."

He just laughs, big, loud guffaws like the type that nearly drown him, and we fall down in a tangled mess. Somehow we'd managed to get in a tree. No idea how that happened, but hey. "Yes, yes we are."

That annoyingly smart nod's the last thing I see before I pass out, trying to figure out who or what is our fucking flavoring and what type of meat Sakura is.

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End file.
